Wilderspool Causeway

Coach Peter’s claim to fame is that he scored in AFC Wimbledon’s very first match – such a brave header that he was knocked unconscious as he scored it. Though I wouldn’t quite endorse that level of bravery, the standard pep talk in the car is aimed at trying to help Evan overcome his nerves and apprehensions, particularly if he has to play in goal.

Even world class goalkeepers make mistakes and concede goals, I try to tell him. Neuer, Casillas, De Gea, Cech, Lloris…fallible individuals. Then, on Heart FM, a song by a fellow called Rag ‘n’ Bone Man came on: I’m Only Human so Don’t Blame Me. ‘That’s important for what you were saying’, reflected Evan. ‘You’re only human so accept what you are.’

This seems to have been a theme of the day, with a poorly Iris weighing in too. Two lines from Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Your Own Worst Enemy’ have been stuck in my head for a few days, but Iris doesn’t appreciate them being belted out over her scrambled eggs: ‘There’s a face you know staring back from the shop window. The condition you’re in – now you just can’t get out of this skin.’ I defy anyone not to relate to the sentiment, but Iris didn’t seem to appreciate it, turning to me and raising her finger as if I was on the wrong end of an LBW decision: ‘Stop singing in the world, OK?’

Today we were up against another incarnation of Reeves Rangers, the Wokingham club founded by a man called Terry with a penchant for the hooped brethren from Shepherd’s Bush. Their website explains that ‘Terry’s creativity slipped into overdrive! At the time, Terry was living in Reeves Way in Wokingham and was also a lifelong fan of QPR. Combining the two, he came up with the name Reeves Rangers FC and thus the club was born.‘ Fair play.

As you may know, the prospect of playing and losing against a team modelled on QPR is not a thrilling one for a Fulham fan. QPR fans cherish the notion that they are ‘real’ people: more real than the average football fan. As a result of being real, they make their language and attitude extra salty. They drink their half-time beer with authenticity, before returning genuinely to their seats to watch the second half with honesty before going home in a legit manner,  whereas we do so superficially.

Furthermore, their team today – the ‘Hoops’ – contained a classic ‘rubber-inner’, a boy from Evan’s school who would delight in mouthing off about a win.

In a minor blizzard, a very well dressed but perma-crocked Coach Michael addressed me in broad scouse: ‘Can you run the warm-up, Alex. I’ve done me knee. It was ruined anyway. I’ve ‘ad five operations on ih.’ What he also had was a ludicrously big blue and white (BLUE & WHITE!) golfing umbrella.  ‘What the hell is that umbrella, Mike?’  It was so outrageous that part way through the second half, the league chairman cottoned on to it, strode across the pitch and ordered an immediate collapse. Quite right too.

The first half began in a welcome state of equilibrium. In fact, having managed to weather the first five seconds (Wokingham & Emmbrook are notoriously catatonic starters of games), we even took the lead after Connor despatched a rebound from close range. Reeves rallied and managed to score from a tight angle from their next attack, then a misplaced pass in midfield led to a well taken second. To round the first half off, a Wokingham defender scored with a glancing header past his own keeper: Evan.

To be fair to Evan, as a human being he prevented two goals prior to this by running out and challenging the attackers in one-on-one situations. The own goal was absolutely unstoppable, sadly.

In the second half Evan was on the pitch and economical in possession, invariably controlling the ball before switching the play or rolling it down the line. Unfortunately, Wokingham were caught out twice in defensive positions, but at 5-1 the game still didn’t feel entirely over. Connor scored a very good goal, cutting in from the left and firing across the goalie before Evan, this time an attacker in a one-on-one, ran through and hit a right foot shot across the keeper and into the far bottom-left corner with great technique. The Hoops also showed some great skill and thwarted our comeback by strong midfield play, adding another goal to make the final score 6-3.

Evan’s comment after the game was ‘I did what I could, dad.’ I was really pleased he’d found some perspective, but he still had to face his friend and nemesis after the game who grinned at him and said ‘We won!’

Well Evan scored and you didn’t, I thought. Why is silence so often described as ‘dignified’? And are you really on the moral high ground or some kind of superior conversational plane if you say nothing in response to gloating?  Evan must have read my mind. ‘I scored and you didn’t’, he replied. The little upstart wandered off but they were still friends. ‘Well done for being positive about your own game. It might have been better just to say “well played” and move on, but actually there wasn’t a lot wrong with you saying your bit there. Well done.’ He can be the Archbishop of Canterbury when he’s older, if he likes. Sometimes I think if someone has a little pop at you then it’s good to have a little pop back – just to keep it real.

 

 

 

In crisp late winter sunshine, we rushed across Hurst and Winnersh with secret knowledge of byroads and a dim view of the moral high ground occupied by slow moving land cruisers and ladies out for a morning hack.

Passing the horses, we were on the verge of Lines Road and of missing kick-off having lost all sense of past and present in the restorative steam baths of Emmbrook, only managing to leave the house at 11:08 for an 11:30 kick-off.

Once in Woodley, you realise you’re in an extraterritorial realm: the zone of the hobbler. If you take any turn from Loddon Bridge Road, be prepared to wait indefinitely for people who limp and drift across their chosen terrain with laboured obliviousness rather than the mildly festive spirits of weekenders on a gentle trip upriver to the salt-vapour frames or the 5-a-side pitches of Woodlands Avenue.

You’ll have to wait between empty pavements behind a driver who’s stopped at a zebra crossing out of sheer respect for the stripes. Be prepared to witness universal accommodation of a limp jaywalker’s right to roam in whatever pattern they please. So pervasive is the general slowness and sense of ‘giving way’ that a post-match  trip to the precinct can feel liberating. You can have a free coffee, if you’ve remembered your MyWaitrose card, and wander around the flower stalls, Labour stands and well stocked charity shops with a sense of total freedom.

Chatting to Coach Peter about what differentiates an excellent, potentially top level player from a merely good one, he concluded the following, based on his own playing experience against West Ham, Wimbledon and the rest: ‘Communication and time. Not, primarily, skill on the ball.’ Excellent players are able to see the whole picture of what’s happening in the game and can therefore speak intelligently to teammates. As a result, they and their team seem to have time on the ball, even in difficult situations. The difficult thing, according to Danny Murphy, isn’t playing the pass, but seeing it in the first place. Similarly, keeping things Irish-Liverpudlian, Ronnie Whelan is an advocate of waiting on the ball, believing that passing without thought is the primary weakness of average players. As for a voice from the capital, Teddy Sheringham was happy to stand still, even at the risk of looking lazy. Too many players run into a good position, only to run out of it again in the next moment – they don’t want to be accused of lack of industry.

In practice, it would be difficult to adopt these principles against the agrarian style of Reeves Rangers Blues who, in our previous meeting, seemed to think ‘have a crack, son’ was a reasonable instruction to a goalkeeper, despite an edict from the league chairman that teams must retreat to the halfway line to enable the opposition to pass the ball along the ground from a goal-kick, thus enriching their development as footballers.

I’m not the only parent who finds it difficult to speak about this team without anger welling up inside, so we tried to watch the game with a degree of detachment and resignation. Their managers have perhaps stood at the crossroads and looked, following the ancient path worn by a certain Premier League manager from Newport: ‘Tony played for Bournemouth in defence but now his playing career is in the past tense…Tony was a man of great ambition so he hung up his boots for a managerial position. He introduced the tactic of simultaneous fouling which he watches from the sidelines in his baseball cap scowling.’

Amazingly, though, Wokingham were so fluid and fast-moving in attack that by half-time it was 5-2, with goals conceded due to aberrations of the upstairs kind rather than ungovernable play from Reeves Rangers. After about a minute and a half, Evan scored with an unstoppable piledriver and the score was already 2-2. In typical buccaneering style, Connor then scored from all angles to execute a brilliant hat-trick, including one of the best goals we’ve witnessed after one touch passes from Evan and Josh led to a thunderbolt from the left wing.

The ref denied us a penalty at a crucial point in the game, using the phrase ‘natural body shape’ to validate the handball. This was despite the later award of a penalty to Reeves Rangers. Are we now to assume, then, that this was the result of an ‘unnatural body shape’ from our defender? Ultimately, we weren’t quite adept enough at understanding how to counteract an attritional style which included total disregard for our goalkeeper’s space. Despite some almost implausibly good play, and the very best of efforts,  we were left to look towards our sabbath loaves and salted beef without the point(s) our fluent football seemed to deserve.

 

 

Managers go: migrate with phantoms
of the present on staircases in frames.
Who stops on the turn and sees the lifting?
Silverware and crow’s feet.

People come and go. Hotel rooms,
breakfast, silence in the lift.
Just standing. Black and white pictures,
complicated meanings. We stood

and looked, tried to prise a story
from the image, but couldn’t stand
for long enough to be the true eccentric.
Too self-conscious to go to ground

and lie on that great underlay
while guests pass, up and down,
and we watch. Just biographer-

Clough on paper, Shankly writing
with kindness to strangers. Truth
and fiction in the pictures.

In possibly the shortest short-term loan in the history of football (10 minutes), Evan began today’s game in the light orange of Tilehurst. I call him Evan, anyway.

His new coaches wouldn’t budge from their own interpretation: ‘Play out wide, Kevin. Get wider – really wide. No, even wider. Right out on the touchline. Good skills! Great goal, Kevin: well done!’ With his third or fourth touch of the game, Evan delivered the unthinkable by tackling Jack, sidestepping Thanasie and scoring against his own club. As an assistant Wokingham coach, I could neither celebrate nor quite conceal my admiration.

“We’ll have him back now”, shouted Peter.

“We could keep him if you like? We’ll put him on the bench?”

“No, we’ll have him back.”

Loan over. Evan’s face was a picture of bewilderment as he went first to Wokingham’s bench, then on to the pitch to replace an injured player and then in goal – all in one half of the game.

A commentator summarising Evan’s involvement in the game would surely not have been any more coherent than Harry Enfield’s Les the Barman and his demented revisionist horse racing commentary: ‘That’s my wife, horse, Red Rum, Maureen, Misty Buff, Mint Sunrise…ooh, it’s way out ahead, third, right at the back…come on boy, Yes! Well, who’d have thought it? My horse winning, er, coming second, third, er…shot in the paddock.’

The collapse was total. Centre Skills were able to move the ball like it was Lurpak Spreadable and the pitch was a slice of toast, buttered evenly and to its farthest reaches. Rarely did they concede a throw-in or lose the ball to a legal tackle. One of their diminutive forwards moved the ball as if it were a moon tethered by gravity or simply an extension of his shoe. He was regularly ungovernable, drawing fouls and intemperate lunges all over the pitch. As a result, they scored two direct free-kicks and one penalty before half-time, leaving the score 6-0 and our early donation of Evan/Kevin impossible to justify.

The second half was much better as Connor responded to his dad’s injunction to ‘find your engine’ by scoring with a fantastic left-footed strike after a driving run down the wing. Evan hurled a ball across the box, Rory Delap style, which Thanasie despatched clinically at close range. Ultimately, though, moments of coherence were about as common as a Dusky Thrush, and the Tilehurst coaches offered us the dubious privilege of playing with an extra player to countermand their superiority: “That’s taking the piss, that is. We’ve still got our dignity”, reflected a Wokingham parent afterwards.

So, a bizarre and punishing game edged towards its conclusion and the idea of a consolatory trip to Reading slowly formed in my mind, along with visions of a milkshake for Evan in the no-longer-so-smelly-alley of Union Street. Wrongly, though – as consistent with the unpredictability of the day – I assumed Oreo would be a shoo-in as his chosen flavour and looked forward to some intermittent sips. In the event, though,  Evan opted for – of all things – a milkshake based on the McVitie’s Gold Bar.

Walking beneath cross-hatched sunbeams along Kennet Side, rechristened the ‘Pigeon Line’ by Evan in recognition of the roof of Queen’s Road car park, Evan asked if I’d rather be a monk or a lawyer. My initial response was ‘Monk, because it’s quieter.’ On the way home, there was even some interesting light above Lower Earley and some elevation, contrary to its name, from which peach melba clouds were visible over Loddon Valley Police Station.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were rumours of gales in Bailey and South East Iceland, becoming cyclonic, so it was a relief to cross the Loddon in clear winter sunshine this morning, with the Thames sea state only smooth or slight.

Our opponents in the A321 derby were Twyford Comets, but other than opportunities to ford the Loddon – as suggested by their name – there was little by way of common ground between us. I’m hopeful, though, that in the future we can look to Hurst or the outskirts of Winnersh – Wokingham, even – and meet at the Wheelrights Arms or Elephant & Castle to confer over Chantry Cheer or other local bitters on all that unites our districts other than the right wing of the Conservative Party.

On the subject of pubs, there seemed little option yesterday other than to raise a glass of San Miguel with Gary and Miguel at The Three Frogs, once visited by Barack Obama on a stag weekend. Miguel is a friend from Mexico and when we weren’t served too swiftly, Gary’s loud observation that ‘they obviously don’t like Mexicans here’ broke the ice all around. Perspective was offered by Miguel as he recounted crossing land borders in Central and South America, resolving never to do so again. The border guards will either take your money and phone ahead to say you’re rich and ripe for a double mugging, or simply not let you pass. He made the Tuns Crossroads and Coppid Beach Roundabout seem almost like trivial thresholds.

Aside from our decaying Ford, the focus of the morning was to feed Evan the energy he needed – both positive and food related. On the food front, he’d have Super Hoops in denial of Fulham’s lunchtime appointment with QPR, a banana, banana and coconut smoothie, Belvita biscuits, a suspended two-fingered wafer biscuit and copious amounts of albuterol sulphate to mitigate a hacking cough and the chances of bronchospasm.

Iris, meanwhile, would undergo double egg machinations: first scrambling them with me and then again with Nananne at lunchtime under the benign jurisdiction of Mam. For positive energy, I encouraged Evan to practise some skills in the lounge and dining room, an exercise which would reap a questionable harvest later on.

If you’re unfamiliar with the layout of the Goals Centre, pitches are named after famous stadia. Today we were at the Olympiastadion, Berlin, the ground at which we feel most at home when not at the Amsterdam Arena. The Olympiastadion also has the Glockenturm, a bell tower and observation deck which seems to find a strange echo in the Bulmershe Water Tower looming proprietorially behind one of the goals.

In a sense, after such difficult weeks leading up to the game, nothing seemed to matter other than the ability to remain unnerved by the data in front of us.

Twyford started laboriously yet with stultifying impact: we couldn’t seem to find a meaningful pass to undermine their sheer bland competence. Evan’s Cruyff turns and sidesteps worked on numerous occasions, yet we gifted them two goals, one from an innocuous throw-in and another when a pass down the line would have been a better option than a Maradona.

In the second half Wokingham fought back until Thanasie, at times as useful as a tap operated by a foot sensor and at others the cornerstone of our success, launched himself into the air to save a shot. Unfortunately, though, he wasn’t the goalkeeper so we conceded a penalty, lost the game and retreated to the bar – Evan, Ciara, Thanasie, Elias, Ian and I – for double-shot Americanos, light blue M&Ms and an ambiguous future, mainly moderate in the south.

 

After last week’s hypershambles, the coaches summoned us through Thursday’s sleet to an echoey gym in downtown Winnersh for some essential training. Hopefully the players would sweat out the toxins, emerging into the nothingy retail hinterlands of Berkshire with faculties unclouded by the bitterness of the past.

The idea was for the keeper to yell ‘SPACE’, prompting the defence and midfield to exploit the full dimensions of the pitch rather than to receive the ball in a potentially dangerous central position.

I’m not a good chess player, but perhaps this approach is analogous to the hypermodernist strategy of attacking on the flanks rather than through the middle, opting for something like Larsen’s Opening – utilising the peripheral pawns first – rather than a central attack through a more typical move such as the Queen’s Gambit.

If you expand, please don’t forget to compress. All the danger comes through the middle. Of course it does – the goals are centrally positioned. This means that any work on the flanks is always and obviously very much on the borders of relevance. We can nudge and shove the ball up and down the line, but that means nothing in the face of a Budapest Defence, a decent through ball or a Fried Liver Attack from Caversham.

Anyway, chess aside, we needed to play something resembling football rather than a shot at meaning in a dead letter office. Rest and recuperation from a difficult week at home, school or work is desirable and necessary, even biblical, but will have to be postponed to accommodate yet another win or loss: shame.

Have you ever wondered what God did on the seventh day? Brad Roberts has: ‘After seven days he was quite tired so God said “Let there be a day for picnics with wine and bread.” He gathered up some people he had made, created blankets and lay back in the shade. The people sipped their wine and what with God there they asked him questions like “Do you have to eat or get your hair cut in heaven? And if your eye got poked out in this life, will it be waiting up in heaven with your wife?”‘

On the way, I wanted to believe the auguries were good. As we passed the Bonwick Milling Heritage Consultancy (supporting owners and guardians of windmills) on Lines Road, we saw a flash of green in the grey winter sky: the parakeet of contested provenance. Were a pair released by Jimi Hendrix in 1960? Did they escape from Shepperton during some filming in 1951? Or have they been here much longer than that? Whichever way you look at it, whenever species proliferate they reach a tipping point at which it becomes acceptable to shoot them out of the sky.

When we eventually got to Woodley and the purgatorial lobby of The Goals Centre, the coaches were in bobble hats. Michael’s was swamp-green while Peter’s was an edgy yet warm and homely mixture of white, black and orange with BRONX woven into its central band. A static glare from Michael suggested we were slightly late for the warm up.

Once the game started, a marked improvement was evident in the team’s play as they whipped the ball across the pitch and down the line, but to little effect. Even Mulvaney’s nimiety of skill wasn’t granted much licence by Caversham’s tall and bustling defence, who in their dark red kits resembled Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth in their Championship winning season, closing down the opposition as if they were an independent cafe at a service station.

By half-time, it was 5-0 and Evan hadn’t even stepped on to the pitch proper. He showed some interesting flourishes, including an Ibrahimovic-style flick which nearly found the net, but didn’t quite warm up enough to find his rhythm. In the end, Jack scored an impressive goal – captured on film – but Wokingham could wrest very little from the wreckage of the first half.

This was a disappointing, chastening experience of being bombed out of the only cup competition we were left to compete in, the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy of youth football. We were left only to consider – with mystification and conjecture – the origins of the parakeet, what happens on a rest day in heaven and that enduring chestnut: concentration on the league.

 

 

An Omnishambles. So much so that Coach Michael decided to keep the Player of the Match wristband because ‘None of yous deserved it.’ All the parents agreed.

The ref was mentally gone, which didn’t help, but let’s rewind a bit first: before the game, we were buoyant. Granted, we hadn’t trained or played since December 17th, but we were up against a newly formed team who seemed raw as a flesh wound when we saw them gadding about on the Maiden Erlegh astro-turf in training last year.

New year, old choruses. Before the game, we asserted our identity and whipped out all the old classics courtesy of Oasis, Take That and The Buggles.

‘And all the roads we have to walk are winding/And all the goals that Evan scores are blinding/There are many ways Amelia will try to out-skill you on her own goal liiiine/But maybe, we’ll get the ball to Mulvaney/And after all, you’re my Coach Michaaaael.’

‘And now we understand the supernova scene/Oh-a-oh/Connor Mulvaney/Oh-a-oh/He’s called Thanasie/Oh-a-oh/We’ve got Jack Parry/Wokingham put the Caversham cars/  In the Thames Water reservoir/Ciara scored and we went one up/WHOA! A-oh-oh-oh.’

‘NEVER forget where you’ve come here from/NEVER forget the A329 (M)/SOMEDAY soon this will all be arable again/(It will be arable again!)’

Exercising the lungs is a cathartic way to start the new year. Most of us were deeply ill in various ways over Christmas, and arrived in Woodley by oblivious avenues: Woodlands, Beechwood, Western. The sky was a reassuringly nondescript grey and therefore wouldn’t mock us. As mentioned, the ref was mentally gone. Apparently he had a shocker in his previous game which sent him into a vortex of self reproach and indecision from which he would not be extricated. You know you’ve had a difficult game when the managers stop remonstrating and start counselling, as Michael did for the whole of half-time.

The players, too, were mentally unfurnished and physically uncoordinated, seemingly still under a cloud of holiday amnesia. I read a paragraph recently about a piano teacher called Edwin Fischer. Apparently he was ‘an inspiring teacher who led two generations of pianists away from the piano and back to themselves.’ But wasn’t he supposed to be a piano teacher? Wasn’t this an offence against the Trade Descriptions Act (1968)?

Maybe this is similar to Coach Michael’s attitude to the ref: ‘Listen son, don’t worry about it. Just forget about the effing reffing. It doesn’t matter. Close your mind to opinions from outside and only open it up again when you’re ready and to people you know and trust. You’ll get there, mate.’

Coach Peter, a former semi-pro striker with an excellent goalscoring record, has a similar attitude. ‘At this age, it isn’t really about the football. It’s about their social development. If they want to pursue football, they will.’ I love that, but when a football match is in progress, it’s really hard not to think about football. Hard for me, at least, but obviously not for the players. If I had 2p for every time I’d heard the phrase ‘away with the fairies’ since September 2015, I’d bother to go to Sainsbury’s to cash them in.

The mistakes in the first half were too many to itemise. As a taster, think of penalties given away, own goals conceded, fouls committed, balls uncontrolled, brains unutilised, attitudes questionable and players careering around like their feet were permanently fixed to the gas pedals of unsteerable dodgems. Hopefully you get the idea.

Perhaps it’s best to concentrate on the good bits. From a corner, Evan engineered a bit of space outside the box and scored with a brilliant strike into the left corner. Connor scored with a nonchalant swipe of his left foot to fool the keeper from three yards out. We huffed and puffed on the foothills of good play, but ultimately were undermined by the litany of errors listed above. At half-time, the score was 5-2, the match was lost and the ref commenced his counselling session. Peter augmented the encouraging words he could muster with some merited jabs of the finger.

The second half was better, but could hardly have been worse. We were left with some ruminative tunes to see the time out: ‘I wish today could be tomorrow/The night is dark/It just brings sorrow, let it wait.’ There was a flurry of pressure towards the end, with Connor scoring two in a minute, but ultimately we were left with Michael’s chastening words, and a twinkle in his eye as he said: ‘None of yous deserve the Player of the Match wristband this week. If you play like that next week in the cup, you’ll be out. So I’m going to keep it and give it to two of you next week when you play how we’ve learnt to.’